The IBC conference in Amsterdam 2016

By Nick Wiseman 09 September 2016

What we learnt from the keynote address by the global MD of Havas. Basically what we’ve believed for a long time – your DRTV ads better work on every media channel, not just TV! “The 50-year party is over”

Article written by Chris Forrester for IBC Daily

Dominique Delport, global MD at Havas Media and chairman of Vivendi’s content division, told IBC delegates at the show’s opening session that the mass- marketing ad-based TV model, which had been a winning formula for retail for 50 years is no more. “Unfortunately the party is over. A recent survey showed that 75 per cent of brands could disappear overnight. We asked 300,000 consumers in 35 different countries about 700 brands. The brands could die because people don’t care about them. This is because the audience is changing. In fact, the audience today IS the media.”

Delport said the new brand domination is coming from GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon). “We are all moving to this direct-to-consumer world. And these same challenges are what media and the telco industries are facing today. There is no European equivalent [to GAFA] and to compete with these giants we have to link with Europe’s telcos.”

To help this process Vivendi is investing €35m each year in a new series of ten-episode shows, each episode of ten minutes duration, which consumers can view while waiting for a bus or sat on a train. “We will formally launch the shows at MIPCOM, and they’ll initially be available to Out LatAm users on 11 October. One new series, every week. They are deliberately addictive, very original and international.” He warned that online advertising was challenged by so-called ad-blockers which are used by some 250m people, and thus ruining the digital advertising model. “We absolutely need to fix this. We need to turn these consumers into customers. We need to know more about them, and to dramatically improve their customer experience.”

Delport said that Vivendi was moving into developing new broadcasting formats. Where it used to compete with the likes of HBO and Sky, it was now co-operating with them on high- profile shows such as The Young Pope.